Fabio Capello

MOSCOW, December 25. /TASS/. The long delayed salary of Russian national team’s head coach Fabio Capello will be paid out eventually, however, the famed Italian manager can submit a claim with a civil court or UEFA, Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said on Thursday.

Capello and Oreste Cinquini, the Russian football team’s general manager, haven't been paid for six months.

“He [Capello] can as well take the offence and quit and then submit a suit with a civil court or UEFA as he has a lot of opportunities,” Mutko told journalists. “[Financial] compensation may be also demanded and as a result the sum will multiply.”

The sports minister said that in any case “Capello will receive his salary as it is stipulated by the contract,” and the wage arrears payment can be ordered “either by Rostrud, or UEFA or a civil court.”

According to results of an inspection carried out last month by the Russian Federal Agency for Labor and Employment (Rostrud) the debt stood at 181.5 million rubles ($3.3 million at current rates), which ought to be repaid within a month, i.e. by December 19.

However, last Friday Rostrud announced that it decided to grant an appeal from the country’s governing football body and extended the date for the Russian Football Union (RFU) required wage arrears payment for another month, i.e. until January 19, 2015.

Mutko said that the issue of the wage arrears payment to Capello was solely in the competence of the football federation adding that the “federation is big and serious with a solid financial foundation.”

The RFU is currently experiencing financial difficulties and its budget deficit totals 500 million rubles ($8.4 million). Following the session of the RFU’s Executive Committee earlier last week, Nikolai Tolstykh, the president of the union, said that a special anti-crisis commission was intended to be set up to tackle the financial difficulties of the organization.

Mutko praised the way the Italian manager handles situation saying “we see by the way Fabio Capello reacts that money is not the most important to him.”

“He is a decent man and the man, who wants to work,” Mutko added.

The Russian national squad experienced a string of setbacks over the past decade failing to qualify for the 2006 World Cup in Germany and 2010 championship in South Africa to the great dismay of the Russian football fans.

Things changed, however, when Italian phenomenon Capello took over the team as the head coach and managed to help the Russian national squad to qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

The team, however, failed to clear the first stage of the much-anticipated global tournament putting their coach in the center of stern criticism and raising serious concerns in the country about the team’s performance in the next World Cup, which would be hosted by Russia in 2018.

However, Russia did not severe the contract with Capello after the Russian team’s performance at the World Cup in Brazil and the Italian manager also decided to stay with the Russian squad as the head coach until the year of 2018 as stipulated by the contract terms.

The country won the bid to host the 2018 World Cup almost four years ago in a tight race against the joint bid from England, Portugal and Spain and the joint bid on behalf of Belgium and the Netherlands.

Russia selected 11 host cities to be the venues for the matches of the 2018 World Cup and they are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Samara.

The matches of the 2018 World Cup will be held at 12 stadiums located in the 11 mentioned above cities across Russia. Two of the stadiums are located in the Russian capital.